Brooke, Marcia and I waited for airline prices to
go down and chose early December to visit
Charleston. Marcia had been there before but Brooke
had not. We arrived in Charleston at 10:00pm Friday
night. Lynda picked us up and after a tour of the
VA hospital parking lot took us to our parents'
condo in downtown Charleston. Lynda and I regaled
Brooke and Marcia with family folklore while
enjoying Bijou cocktails until we were ready to
crash.

The next morning Lynda went off to paddle and
Brooke, Marcia and I headed to the Saturday market
at Marion Square. After Lynda rejoined us we headed
to see some of the other sites. We strolled through
the city market where the big item of interest was
baked okra. We headed towards the Battery after
stopping at a tourist place to pick up a map and
almost get talked into listening to a timeshare
spiel so we could get $100 off our dinner at
Slightly North of Broad (SNOB)
later that night.

Brooke has a friend who
has a relative who owns a little restaurant/grocery
store called the Queen Street Grocery and we
thought we would try to find it on our
walkabout. What we thought would be a couple of
blocks away turned out to be a lot further but
we had a very nice walk down streets I had never
been on. The guy at the tourist place indicated
that the area in which the restaurant was
located was outside the tourist area and
therefore was unsafe. He was, of course, very
wrong and we let the guys running the store know
what was being spread to gullible tourists (we
counted ourselves in that group since we almost
fell for the spiel). It turned out that Brooke's
friend's relative had sold the business but we
still stayed and had a lovely inexpensive lunch.
Their specialty is crepes!

From there we headed back to the condo to take in
one more Charleston site - Angel Oak - a 65 foot
tall live oak providing 17,000 square feet of
shade. Amazing!. We hung out for about half hour
and then headed back to the condo to change for
dinner and meet up with the rents.

Dinner at SNOB was great. The decor was nice. The
waiter, food and wines were good. The activities in
the open kitchen were fun to watch. After dinner we
went back to the condo and went up to the rooftop
which had recently been opened. Lovely sites of the
city. We then said good bye to Lynda and headed to
Edisto with Mom and Dad.

The next morning we went to the beach and Botany
Bay Plantation and drove around the island. We saw
dolphins and wild turkeys. On the beach we saw a
one legged sandpiper that seemed kind of sad. And
when we got too close and he hopped away one from
us into the surf his ONE LEG we almost cried from
sympathy and guilt. But moments later he
nonchalantly pulled his other leg out from where he
was hiding it and started looking for food in the
sand. Once again we felt like gullible tourists!

WE had a nice lunch featuring Mom's shrimp and
pasta dish before we headed to the airport for our
6:00 flight.

This zinnia on my Mom's back porch seemed to have
no problem with the Edisto heat

Friend from the Augusta hood Steve Tomlin and his
brother-in-law Mark docked their boat behind the
house. We were telling them stories of famous local
fisherman friend Jim Rooney and guess who appears
out of nowhere. Rooney even divulged the location
of some of his favorite fishing spots

Sunday we headed to Savannah where Sandy and T fed
us some fantastic shrimp, salad and blueberry-peach
crisp. Sandy bought extra shrimp so we sat around
the table afterwards and helped her peel just like
an old fashioned quilting bee. Unfortunately Little
T did not join us as his sleeping cycle was not in
tune with ours, except maybe Dad's.

Mr Pin gave us a tour of the several varieties of
grapes in his grape cage.

After lots of research and advice from owners of
robotic vacuum cleaners we purchased this guy and
named him Leon after the professional assassin (or
cleaner) in the movie The Professional (AKA
Leon) (Natalie Portman's first movie
role) (my favorite Gary Oldman role).

We set him up to run 3 days a week in the late
morning so Joe can check up on him when he comes
home for lunch. Every now and then he gets stuck in
small spaces but he is smart enough to give up
after a while and just stops and displays a message
telling us to help him. He seems very determined as
he cleans - like a man with a plan.

Check out the picturesfrom my long
weekend in Charleston and Edisto in early June. I
attended some Spoleto events (Sarah Jaroz, The Red
Shoes and Shen Wei Dance), had some beach time,
family time and plenty of eatin time.

We spent the last day in Mongolia visiting two
Buddhist monasteries, the Natural History Museum
and having a final meal at our favorite Korean
restaurant. Our first stop was Gandan Monastery, the oldest
monastery in Mongolia built in the 1800s. Most
temples were destroyed or shut down during
Soviet times but they left one alone
apparently as a showcase to westerners of
their religious tolerance. The Gandan
monastery is actually a working monastery so
we saw monks praying, chanting and just
hanging out. There were also many people there
praying and spinning the various prayer
wheels. Inside one of the temples Connie and I
started spinning the prayer wheels that lined
the inside walls building but were immediately
warned that we were going the wrong way. We
corrected our direction but did not make it
all the way around because the wheel were very
cold and our hands soon got numb even with
gloves on.

We did a bit of shopping at the monastery store. I
bought beads, some small bells and a couple of
gifts.

We then headed to the Choijin Lama Temple Museum, a
monastery built in the early 1900s. There were
about 6 or 7 temple buildings. We went into two
of them and saw many intense statues of gods and
demons and some interesting artworks - including
two representations of hell - one with fire and
the other with ice. I chose not to pay for
taking pictures which was twice the price of the
admission but I really regret that decision.
There really was some amazing things. The
temperature outside was less that 10 degrees and
it was even colder in the temples so we did not
visit all the buildings. I hope this temple
complex remains intact. High rising housing
construction was circling it like wagons in the
old west.

The Natural History
museum was interesting for its amazing fossilized
dinosaur bones and eggs. My favorite items were a
fully intact pelvis the size of a flattened VM bug
and a claw as big as me. Unfortunately photos were
not allowed.

A final shot at Happiness Land next to the Korean
restaurant and a history lesson at the Ulaanbaatar
airport

The highlight of the trip home was 12 hours in
Beijing but otherwise it was long and
uncomfortable. We arrived in Beijing (the airport
is beautiful), checked into a crappy hotel very
near the airport and then arranged for two taxis to
pick us up at 12:30am and drive us around for a
couple of hours. We then slept for 3 hours and
headed back to the airport at 7:00am. Needless to
say there were no tourists at Tiananmen Square so
it was us, the many surveillance cameras and the
military guards. We walked around the square and
outside the wall of the Forbidden City, which was
closed. We encountered two guards in an underpass,
one seemed thrilled to talk to anyone and practice
his English, the other did not say a word but did
not seem to mind Connie posing with him for a
picture.

Beijing airport

Tianeman Square and the underpass where we talked
to the guard. Note the cameras.

Near the Forbidden City

We flew through Tokyo but felt no real sense of
trauma from the earthquake disaster in the short
layover. It was just another busy airport. Miyako
had been worried the whole time we were in Mongolia
and was able to talk to her family a couple times
there and at the airport before we headed to the US

So for most days it was up 7 or 8, eat a fairly
leisurely breakfast of made-to-order omelets,
sausage, yogurt, almost decent coffee. There was a
lot of dinner food served like pasta carbonara but
i just could not get behind that for breakfast.

A embassy van would pick us up and we would be
dropped at the various locations for teaching,
choreographing, lecturing, observing. We went to
universities, grade schools, the School for the
hearing impaired, three different dance groups'
studios and a place called The American Corner
where young adults gather to learn and practice
English. These organizations were all chosen by the
embassy and we were welcomed everywhere.

I mostly took photos and videos but Sarah and I
talked at the American Corner one afternoon. This
was not a dance audience and I got the feeling they
were not necessarily interested in Dana's group but
they did seem interested in how we felt about
Mongolian folk dancing, contortionists," Dancing
with the Stars" type programs and Lady GaGa. Mostly
I think we provided real English speaking people to
talk and listen to.

In the evenings we went to the hotel bar and worked
on the Chronicle for Higher Education blog. Dana
wrote, I made editorial suggestions and then we
went through photos that fit with the text and/or
were interesting. We then emailed everything and in
the morning at breakfast we were able to see the
final blog entries at the Chronicle site.

We usually drank Chinggis beer at the bar and one
night we sampled the local wheat beer.

On Thursday early
evening we were finally able to do a bit of
shopping. We went to the huge State Department
store which sounds like it kept its name from
Soviet times. The souvenirs were on the 8th floor
so we spent time there. I also ventured down to the
cashmere floor to find a sweater for my aunt Zita
and was successful. (Cashmere is an important
Mongolian export) We were some of the last people
in the store.

Friday (last full day in Ulaanbaatar) was spent at
the theater preparing for the evening performance.
The uneven wood plank floor delayed warmup and
rehearsal. The 4 dancers and I walked around a bit
and ate at the Grand Khan Irish Pub which was
pretty good. The floor was eventually covered with
felt and the a marley (vinyl) dance floor. The
dancers said that dancing on it was other-worldly
but they did fine.

The performance was by embassy invitation only (not
sure why) and was about 3/4 filled. US Ambassador
Addleton (who grew up in Macon, GA) and his wife
attended and stuck around for the little reception
afterwards. We took a group picture of embassy
staff and translators, Tumen Ek dancers and other
guests before heading back to the hotel to eat and
blog at the bar.

Ulaanbaatar is the largest city with a population
of over a million. It was founded in 1639 as a
Buddhist center but moved around as a nomadic
society tends to do for about 100 years until it
settled on the current location. It is an
interesting city but not necessarily pretty. There
is a large river bank that runs through it but the
amount of water that runs is more of a creek. There
are large fenced areas of gers (yurts) mixed with
houses that house migrants that have come from
rural jobless areas to find work in the mostly
jobless city. The country will see a rise in jobs
when they increase mining (coal, gold, copper)
activities over the next couple of years. Large
high rise housing is going up in anticipation but
there seems to be no urban planning. Garbage on the
streets is common.

Sukhbaatar Square - the
centerpiece of Ulaanbaatar. The statue on the
left is of Sukhbaatar, who helped free Mongolia
from the Chinese but in the center of the
building is a huge impressive statue of Chinggis Kahn, the hero of
Mongolia and the namesake of some excellent
beer.

Some traditional outfits worn by mostly older
Mongolians, I suspect the fellow in red is a monk
but I like the Burberry scarf (I think dancer
Connie - whose photos are mixed with mine -took
that shot)

Ger district in town and spreading up the distant
hillside and new high rises. You can see the river
bed with water flow that never fills the bed even
in springtime.

The folk dance company
we worked with were called Tumen Ekh and we spent a
lot of time at their studio/theater space.

The top pic is the entrance with dancers Sarah,
Kelly and Dana and one of the many translators we
worked with. The red door inside (with Dana) is
just inside the building and through the door and
upstairs is an art gallery with this giant
traditional musical instrument called the horse
head fiddle. Later in the week we bought some of
the calligraphy works you see on the walls from the
fellow next to the fiddle.

To the right of the red door is the studio where
Dana, Sarah and Kelly taught and choreographed.
Dana choreographed a duet and a group piece in an
amazing short period of time. The duet was with two
very talented (and nice) male dancers (with Dana in
one of the pics). One was the only dancer who spoke
a small amount of english. Dana did not have a
translator for most of his choreography sections so
he was was a real help, but demonstration was the
language mostly used. There are other pics of the
dancers on the DTSB&Co blog

Near the studio is a Korean restaurant that
actually served great coffee and lots of different
Asian cuisine - the best Chinese food I had in a
long time. On the way to the restaurant was this
building with the English name "Happiness Land".
This building was photographed by the group more
than any other.

The first night we were there we were able to see a
performance of the Tumen Ekh dancers, singers and
musicians - very impressive. The female singing was
a similar to Chinese singing (like in the movie
Raise the Red Lantern). The males did some throat
singing. The dances were very energetic. The
costumes were gorgeous. The contortionists were a
bit odd. The bottom pic is of the Tumen Ekh
dancers, directors, the embassy cultural attache
(Marissa) and DTSB&Co group. The two males in
the fur hats are the males in the duet.